A daily design journal about new england life, home decorating resources, and renovating a 257-year-old house in Marblehead, MA.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. My hard drive on my 2-year-old imac died on Sunday afternoon and had to be replaced. The ordeal was pretty traumatic and I cried a lot. I tried to stay calm knowing I had backed up my files a few months ago on an external hard drive. When my imac returned home on Wednesday I plugged in the drive to find nothing on it. My stomach sank. For some reason my perfectly new external hard drive had nothing on it. My boyfriend and I are pretty techy and can’t find a reason why the files are gone. All my photos, music, videos are gone. Thankfully, I have a lot photos uploaded to flickr and to my blog. All my funny and personal photos are gone forever. I’m trying not to dwell but I feel miserable.

Above and below are the first photos to go on my new hard drive backed up by my new external hard drive. Greg and I went up to NH on Saturday and checked out Canterbury Shaker Village for some house inspiration. We had mixed feelings about the visit. Our tour guide talked a lot about religion and seemed offended by questions about design. Taking photos inside was against the rules. Above and below a few shots of the rolling fields displaying gorgeous skies and colorful fall leaves.

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Dear Katy,
Your photo’s are amazing and your style is lovely. I think I can understand what you’ve been through. I had the same experience twice. The good thing is that you’ll remember the lost pic’s better than the ones you kept on flickr. (Well that is my experience).
Lots of success!
I shall look forward to read your new stories.
Emilie from Amsterdam

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VirginiaOctober 22nd, 2009 @ 11:07 am

I lost 4 months of photos. I know how you feel! I just subscribed to Mozy which backs up automatically so I don’t lose any more. I like your blog – I too live in an old (1780) house in MA which we are SLOWLY renovating. Yours is much more daunting than mine though! What state are your chimneys and fireplaces in?

This place is beautiful. I would have the same mixed feelings. Design was such an important, if slightly unconscious, part of the Shaker life. It seems the guide should have been happy to address your questions.

I’m really sorry about your hard drive, Katy. I’ve never lost quite that much, although we did have a freak out about Eric’s external drive. It crashed and neither of our computers would even read it. He figured out a reclamation software though, and we got them back. But, for about 24 hours, both of us thought that nearly all of our past schoolwork was gone. Which was pretty much all of our art. It was frightening.

That is just heartbreaking, Katy. I’ve had the hard drives go THREE times on Macs and now am Mrs. McAnalPants about backing up. Such a lame experience. Keep your chin up!

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SarahOctober 22nd, 2009 @ 12:05 pm

hi katy! i was looking at your other posts of shaker furniture, and i was wondering if you’ve taken a look at amish furniture? comparatively, they seem reasonably priced for handmade new pieces, and there are some styles similar to your windsor chairs and farm tables. even if the websites are off-putting, the furniture is still beautiful.

Hi katie – I’m a NH girl originally and glad to see the pics from Shaker Village. There’s a beautiful one in Hancock, Mass which I’m sure you know about.

My husband and I lost our all of our digital photos when his (evil Dell) hard drive died. they said even paying a computer doctor hundreds of dollars wouldn’t fix it. we were devastated initially. it’s the photo history of our entire 7-year relationship. i’d say we’re still devastated, but to be honest i’ve gone into a state of denial about it. i can’t think about it or i just get so sad. i’m sentimental about photos, letters, everything. so, i’m so sorry this happened to you, too!

on a happy note, i love your blog, it’s one of the first i read. great combination of my favorite things: design, new england, and old homes.

I really recommend Hancock Shaker Village in Lenox, MA. You can walk around in an out of all of the structures, there is beautiful furniture and other handmade goods on display, along with lots of farm animals. Tours are self guided, but some of the buildings have guides to answer questions. I’m pretty sure that you can take pictures inside the structures (at least I did!). I visited this summer on a trip to the Berkshires and loved it.

Thanks guys. We are running a program on the external drive tonight. Fingers crossed!

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VirginiaOctober 23rd, 2009 @ 11:53 am

I’ve got four chimneys and seven fireplaces all of which are unlined and uncapped. I’ve had a mason come out and look at them and I really didn’t like the options they gave me. I don’t like to use nonreversable methods, such as pouring an internal liner, to fix anything in the house. Have you had any thoughts on what you might do with yours? Seems a shame not to use them.

Our tour guide said in such words…Don’t remember the shakers for their objects but remember them for their beliefs.

I took this as…’yuppy people don’t ask me about the damn chairs.’

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RoxaneOctober 25th, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

My sister & I loved touring the Canterbury Shaker Village and luckily we didn’t encounter such a guide!

Perhaps your guide should read the Canterbury Shaker website describing the Shaker belief about using such objects that embody their belief of meaningful work and that are sold in their gift shop for the express purpose of sending the Shaker spirit back into the world.

Sorry about the hard drive :( Because I use mine for our business and have hundreds of photos on it, I’ve invested in a external hard drive which hopefully been successful in backing everything up!